Weight limits for bicycles need to be higher and more transparent, especially if the majority of people want to use them.
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There is one major issue with this article:
Yet, many bikes and bike equipment are still manufactured with only the other 26% in mind.
No. They are made with the majority in mind, since the European and Asian bike market, where significantly fewer people are overweight or obese dwarve the American market.
Projected North American bike market revenue (2024):
$10.44 billionProjected European bike market revenue (2024):
$27.89 billionProjected Asian bike market revenue (2024):
$42.13 billionOn an international market, if you don’t matter enough you won’t get special treatment.
Just imagine if 74% of Luxembourgians decided that their smartphone must have a USB-A port, as an essential requirement. How many major manufacturers would accommodate them instead of continuing to sell “normal” phones? Sure, they could put a USB-A port onto all phones globally sold, but why bother? It’s more expensive and nearly nobody outside of Luxembourg would want that feature.
Edit: Source for the numbers (you can switch the displayed region)
where significantly fewer people are overweight or obese
Hey, not sure if you’re getting your numbers from the article, but you may want to double check.
40% of Asia is overweight or obese and over 50% of Europe is overweight or obese, with USA at 75%. (Sourced from WHO)
Also, just an aside: the USA is the smallest of these three by population, so the total number of overweight or obese people in Europe vs USA (240-250M)is fairly close even though the percentages are higher.
A good point, but from the article it sounds like the demographic for which this would be a problem is 300lbs+. The proportion of people meeting the criteria for being overweight is in the same ballpark, but I wonder if maybe there’s a more skewed distribution of people who are overweight enough to exceed the safety margin of a standard bicycle.
I think it starts to be more of a problem around 230-250lbs. Like they mentioned in the article, the bikes are often listed at a total weight capacity, meaning rider + cargo, with most brands at or below 300lbs. If the rear rack is meant to hold 40lbs and maybe 5lbs of accessories and water bottles then add 20lbs for a front rack/panniers; your getting into the close to the rider weight limit by being anything more than a little overweigh.
It’s worse than that, even. Some brands (like Tern) go by gross vehicle weight, meaning rider + cargo + bike. And their most popular bike is 75 pounds.
It’s not as much of a problem for Tern specifically because their bikes are rock solid (I’m very big and tall and don’t have a problem with mine) but still a confusing way to measure.
I think the article is mostly advocating for the weight limit to be on the technical specificationd of the bikes, which seems a fair argument to me.
I honestly applaud anyone who wants to get on a bike, especially if it’s to improve their fitness.
Bike frame weight limits are only one thing to consider. Wheels and tires have weight limits too. And some bikes have a higher center of gravity than others, so weight up top would be very unstable.
I would think (hope) that anyone who is over 220lbs would consider a custom, steel frame bike that is built specifically to handle the extra weight, and not rely on what the weight limit on a website says.
Also, people have to realize that the “weight limit” of a bike can often include other things that the rider might be carrying on their bike. Cargo bikes often have several weight limits depending on what you’re looking for, but even those have their limits.
Side note: this was a problem in the e-scooter world, where you’d get people who would be at the upper limit of the scooter’s weight limit asking if it would be safe for them to ride. Well, the frame might support the weight if it’s not in motion, but the motor likely can’t push that weight for very long, and certainly not up hill.
A custom bike sounds expensive, I really wish there were more east-to-buy prebuilt options. Fat people are pretty common, they’re not a rare body shape or disability that should require a custom bike. And I do wish higher weight limit tires were more common, I’m not overweight myself but I sometimes heavily load my electric bike with cargo (and a trailer that pushes down on the rear axle), and occasionally I have problems with spokes breaking already. Bikes that can carry toddlers are becoming common fast, I wish heavy wheels were more standardized for both heavy people and cargo bikes.
Fat people are pretty common, they’re not a rare body shape or disability that should require a custom bike.
Bikes are, in general, designed to be as light as they can be for their price point. The reason behind this is that a lighter bike is less weight to move, meaning for the same effort one can potentially go farther or faster than they would be able on a heavier bike. So when a company is designing a bike, they think about the person they believe will buy it and design a bike that will support that rider.
Heavier people weigh more, obviously. Larger loads require more structural strength. Making a bike that can carry a 300lb+ person without breaking involves a redesign if you initially designed for lighter loads. Similarly, building it requires change to your manufacturing processes.
People who have health problems due to their weight, in general, do not buy as many bikes as people whose weight does not negatively impact their health. A company isn’t going to go an make a big production run of an expensive product if they don’t think there’s a market for it, which means it becomes a custom job to get one done.
Want cheaper bikes that can handle 300lb+ riders? Do a kickstarter and see how many customers will put down dollars.
A custom bike sounds expensive, I really wish there were more east-to-buy prebuilt options.
Yes, it can be expensive, but being obese is expensive. Some people have to go out of their way to buy “big and tall” clothing (at a premium), special beds or chairs, modifications to their car, etc.
Fat people are pretty common, they’re not a rare body shape or disability that should require a custom bike.
Fat people may be common, but heavy-duty bikes are not. For a bike to be stronger, you either have to sacrifice on cost, the weight of the bike, frame materials, or hard-to-find/custom gear.
It becomes a problem when someone is looking for a cheap bike, because none are going to be built to carry an enormous amount of weight.
And I do wish higher weight limit tires were more common, I’m not overweight myself but I sometimes heavily load my electric bike with cargo (and a trailer that pushes down on the rear axle), and occasionally I have problems with spokes breaking already.
They are… for a price. You can get tires and wheels built to handle more weight, but you’d have to pay a premium for them, and be willing to sacrifice their size/weight.
You also have to be realistic of what you’re getting. If someone weighing 300lbs wants to get a small folding bike, they aren’t going to have much luck with anything.
I fitted new wheels on my MTB turned touring-capable bike, and had to get 36 spokes and very beefy schwalbe tires to accommodate the load. I spent a lot more than someone who doesn’t have to worry about carrying weight.
I wish heavy wheels were more standardized for both heavy people and cargo bikes.
They will be. E-cargo bikes in particular have really jumped in popularity, and that will be followed by cargo-specific tires, wheels, and accessories.
But to circle back to the original article. Yes, weight limits and all relevant specs should always be listed and easily available. I personally hate having to dig through stuff to find something as important as torque specs for bolts, as an example.
I predict “mag” wheels, or forged aluminum wheels to come back into style. Cast mag wheels were cheap in the 80s, but forged wheels are much lighter, though also much more costly.
Custom bikes are actually cheaper if you have like $50 worth of tools.
Yeah I just don’t see the solution that a lot of people are pushing for. Should everyone’s bike be heavier because some people need them reinforced? And should scooters not be popularly used until motors than can push 3x the weight are common?
Having bike and scooter options available that work for everyone should be a goal, but criticizing existing models doesn’t make sense to me.
Yeah I just don’t see the solution that a lot of people are pushing for.
I think it’s two-fold.
Yes, in fairness to everyone, manufacturers need to post weight limits (and all other specifications) in an accessible way.
That said, prospective riders should realize that what they need will likely be at a category/size/weight/price they weren’t expecting.
I don’t consider it far-fetched for a manufacturer to list the lowest approved weight of all the components as the bikes rated weight.
Or even certify the frame separately so they have a practical and theoretical weight limit of the bike.
“Fatphobic” (because that’s what we call social health consciousness these days) rant incoming:
It’s been an issue for a while across all facets of life now and no one is brave enough to be the first voice to say “hey, these things literally were not made to support people as heavy as you.” In the past year, a horseback riding trail in my hometown had to close because there were not enough customers whose weight didn’t pose a serious risk of injuring the horses. A few years ago I had to install a steel support beam in the crawlspace under the master bedroom of a morbidly obese couple. Together, they probably pushed a half a ton and spent easily 16 hours a day on that bed. The framing had become so sunken that you could see the subflooring through the gaps that appeared between the flooring.
Just the other week my roommate invited an old school friend over, the guy probably weighed about 300lbs at 5’8" and broke a stool (Lyra by Magis, very nice, one of my favorites) in my kitchen. How anyone can be that big and so unaware of the strain their weight is putting on the things underneath them is beyond me.
But bigger people deserve to be able to bike too! It’s just the reality of the world we live in, plus many people have genetic issues that make it fairly difficult to lose weight. They shouldn’t be locked out of basic things like being able to survive without a car. I admit horses are a different story because they’re live animals, but bicycles are human-made and can and should be designed to handle more weight, especially with how many people are bigger.
I agree that there should be options for bigger people, but that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be bikes as light and high-performing as possible made for those who can use them, and if that’s the focus of a given manufacturer, that’s not an ethical issue. It’s just their specialization, and there’s plenty of room for other designers to focus on bikes for heavier riders as that market becomes viable.
Everyone deserves to ride bikes, and bike designers deserve to focus on the types of bikes they want. 7-foot NBA players deserve to be comfortable in cars, but it’s not Ford’s fault or responsibility that finding a car is more difficult for them than for those between the 10th and 90th height percentiles. No less unfortunate, but changing the design of all cars or expecting app major manufacturers to design for outliers isn’t necessarily a solution.
I don’t read the article as an attack on building high performing bikes.
Just about manufacturers giving a better idea of what a bicycle or wheel set can stand up to by including some maximum supported weight information that is not just available in a manual (which most people don’t see until post-sale)
We can pretty easily infer the weight of an overall build down to how much the spokes weigh before buying… why can’t we be given more information about what a rim or frame can stand up to with regards to weight?
100% agreed with this point. I don’t think the article attacks bike makers for their specialization, but I think a lot of the people reacting to pieces like this take it there or read active/intentional fat-phobia into brands’ current practices.
there shouldn’t be bikes as light and high-performing as possible made for those who can use them
… Nobody is saying that?
This is literally the same argument Republicans used during BLM protests.
Nobody was saying non-black lives don’t matter. Nobody is saying lightweight bikes for fit people should be a thing of the past.
I just want to be able to tell my buddy pushing 250 where he can get a bike that won’t cost way more than someone just getting into a hobby is willing to spend. I want to be able to get my parents and sister and in-laws riding with me and my wife without telling them “sorry, you need to buy a $3,000 bike because nobody makes a standardized style for people your size”
Totally agreed and I see the connection with the (deplorable) “all lives matter” reactionary argument. I don’t think this article makes the argument I was referencing, but many people’s reactions in these comments do. I honestly don’t find much that I disagree with in the article, but in how people suggest the bike industry addresses those issues, there may be a lack of balance.
A lot of people just go knee-jerk in the direction they want, not realizing they’re dragging everything along with them.
I would love for there to be a “fat bike” style that’s fairly standard across the industry, but there simply isn’t. I spend all day building bikes for various companies, and the only new things I see are ebikes, and a lot of those are simply hub motors and speed controllers crammed onto existing frames. That means the effective weight limit is even more reduced.
It’s going to be quite some time before the industry changes to heavier models simply because they don’t see it as profitable yet. Even if they tried to pivot today, it would be years before you see changes in your local stores.
I wasn’t reading through every comment, I just saw a bunch of people saying they want heavier bikes, but it didn’t seem like anyone was trying to suggest normal bikes stop being made. Heck, as far as I’m concerned “skinny person bikes” should always continue being made just for the same reason some people want “fat people bikes” today, so someone with an abnormal body type can ride comfortably, and safely.
The fact of the matter is, the industry will only go where the money is. And as sort of a logical conundrum, more fat people would hike if they had better bikes, but the bikes won’t show up until more fat people ride.
So the question is how big is the demand?
If the industry clearly advertised the weight limits of each model it would help. This would allow a company to offer a niche product. If the demand is there, the company will succeed.
I agree with most of what you said but not It’s just the reality of the world we live in, plus many people have genetic issues that make it fairly difficult to lose weight.
It’s not just the reality of the world we live in. People were not this fat 30 years ago, let alone 50 or 100 years. And it is something we can change, if we cared to.
“Genetic issues” are too much of a crutch or a lame excuse. Yes that makes it more difficult, but it doesn’t make it impossible or justify not trying to get to a more reasonable weight.
But there absolutely should exist a segment of bicycles for almost every range of weights.
I never thought about this until it happened to me, but a lot of medications can cause significant weight gain. I used to weigh 110lbs for a good chunk of my existence and was very fit.
I experienced a mental health crisis and the antidepressants made me gain around 60lbs. Don’t ask me how, I’m not a doctor. But to go from being very thin to overweight was kinda disturbing…just ballooning up like that. Also…the constipation was the worse I’ve ever experienced. I could eat salads all day(and did) and my shit was still rock hard.
I’ve since quit taking them due to side effects killing my quality of life and the weight is slowly coming off…but it’s like my whole metabolism is fucked forever now. (I’m doing much better mentally, I was in a bad situation, and leaving it helped immensely)
There are people who need those meds to function, and A LOT of people take them. Probably a contributing factor as to why there’s more large people now. Either accept the weight gain and be mentally healthier, or have more mental health problems with no weight gain. Thats a hell of a choice.
Hopefully newer meds are being developed that don’t have those side effects.
Salad is high fiber, it’s going to make your shit hard.
Dude, it didn’t matter how much water I drank, or how much fiber(Dr’s advice was to eat salads and high fiber food) I couldn’t shit. Laxatives didn’t even help. Never had that issue before or after i stopped taking those meds. It was fucking awful.
Also, without medications messing up my digestive system, salads usually make me poop. Not diarrhea or anything, just…kinda moves things along if you will.
Maybe your body reacts differently? Bodies are weird as fuck like that.
I had some issues with retention and changing diet to high fiber made it worse… so yeah bodies are weird like that.
Cycling is extremely low impact, and getting exercise on a bike can be a lot easier on the joints than walking or running.
There are no genetic issues which violate the laws of thermodynamics
Genetic issues have always been around, but the rise in obesity is strictly modern. Throughout eons of history, people have been at a severe calorie deficit. Your body has many amazing background processes to help you survive famines (your body will try to retain as much fat as possible when starving over longer periods of time), avoid accidentally killing yourself due to excess calorie burns while foraging (your body builds in an automatic efficiency curve into repetitve exercise to conserve calories), and even some genetic changes for those that endured exteme famine conditions, which were passed down between generations after calamities like the irish potato famine, making people more likely to survive. These are great during civilization collapses, but really bite us in the ass in modern times.
However, the rise of ultra processed foods (UPFs) and other calorie dense foods make it extremely easy to take in far more calories than one could ever burn though exercise alone. As more jobs transition from labor intensive (bricklaying, farming, digging trenches, and laying roads by hand and pickaxe), we have created a more sedentary lifestyle at the same time, compounding the issue.
We definitely need to factor in larger people into stuff like biking, but biking alone will not address the root cause of the problem: 1. the proliferation of UPFs coupled with their low costs, 2. a sedentary lifestyle due to cars and office jobs, and 3. the collapse of third places where people can hang out, swim, play outdoor games, sports, etc.
Nip those three problems in the bud, and you improve the health outcomes for generations of people.
Stuff like urban density, lowering the cost of healthy foods while improving signage on UPFs, making it easy to walk, bike, bus, or commute via rail instead of drive, and improve free or low cost social spaces will help. :)
Deserve to bike and “deserve to force bicycle manufacturers to make mass-produced models that super serve the super-sized even though they’re a significant minority of the actual and probable global customer base” are very different things.
If you want a bike for someone 300+, get a used, big steel frame and start assembling. Same for weight weenies the want bikes as light as a feather: customization is on you. Mainstream, pre-assembled bikes are going to be made for the majority of people that are likely to buy them, because otherwise they won’t sell.
Again, to emphasize: AT EITHER END–super comp or super weight–bikes are specialized (not the company) bicycles that require parts selection and piece-by-piece assembly. It’s not “unfair” to morbidly obese people anymore than it is unfair to someone that wants a super light bike or a super durable, weight-bearing, bike-packing ride.
My friend is 6’5 and all muscle, idk how much he weighs but it’s got to be a lot. He had to build a bike from scratch as well. He would pop spokes and mess up frames. It’s not about fat it’s about weight. Less than 2% of the population in the United States weighs more than 300 pounds, and I imagine only a fraction of that fractional subset of people intend to ride a bicycle.
Also, “custom” does not necessarily mean expensive. It just means building it up piece by piece. Many people who have very little money but want a decent bike also build “custom” bikes from used parts, because you can slap together a decent bike from good used parts rather than spend the same amount on a Walmart special that breaks apart in two months.
They’re not left out. They just have to purchase the right equipment for their condition.
They have excluded themselves from a segment of the market.
We have to stop infantilizing adults and actually tell grown ups what’s actually going on.
They are purchasing the wrong equipment because the manufacturer isn’t being upfront about the limits. That’s one of the problems this article is about.
I got put on Concerta as a kid and I ended up gaining quite a bit of weight very quickly. You don’t really notice these things when you’re living in that body 24/7. All of a sudden I was not able to fit in my favourite hide and seek places. Just another perspective since you said you couldn’t wrap your head around people who don’t know their own weight.
Sorry about your stool though that really blows.
Yeah I mean even if you’re someone who feels that being fat is not their fault or something to be ashamed of, nor are the laws of physics and limitations of structural integrity someone else’s.
That stool is more of a decoration piece than a stool it’s not built with sturdiness in mind sound more like a failure on the designers part
You are an idiot.
👍🏼
I implore you to go to Italy circa 1970s and tell Design Group Italia that 140kgs is an unacceptably low weight limit for a single-person stool. Quit normalizing suicide via obesity.
I’m not normalizing obesity I’m criticizing the design of a stool. I looked up the stool you mentioned and it looked like it connected the seat to the legs just by being fastened together from center of the seat to a small point where the legs joined together in a sort of pyramid like design. If the stool had been designed with each of the legs equidistant closer to the circumference of the seat it probably wouldn’t have taken as much damage from Bigman. But idk I’m not a stool designer or a Time Machine owner
Youre a person who prefers function over aesthetics, thats totally fine.
140kg stool is perfectly acceptable as a furniture piece anywhere but your mind.
Well, no. There’s a place for design and fashion pieces and a place for lightweight / inexpensive pieces. But the middle of the road options, your everyday average furniture? Those should be sturdy, reliable, simple pieces. I can see a stool having a 140kg weight limit when looking at it from the perspective of “a stool is for one person sitting on it”.
But I’d rather it have a bit more strength. Things happen, like somebody wanting to sit in your lap for a moment or children being silly. Design for when things go wrong, not for a happy path use case.
If it’s not meant to hold 300lbs, it’s a decoration, not a stool! My apartment is only built for 2 relatively fit people, being a small walkup. So I consider it more a sculpture than something functional.
Have we really normalized obesity to such an extent that we consider “a small walk” to be an indication of being fit? God.
On the other point, maybe some Europeans can chime in: would you consider a stool unusable and fit only for decoration if its weight limit was 140 kilos?
140kg limit for anything you’re putting all your weight on is quite generous.
Anything over like 100kg limit is bonus
A walkup apartment means no elevator, so to be fair to anyone else, a small walkup could still require like 15 flights of stairs. And by “small” I was referring to the apartment, but obviously still joking about the whole comment. Saying that a small apartment is only for fit people is supposed to be like saying a stool with a 300lb limit isn’t a stool.
It’s a little sad that we need to actually say this, but:
Don’t be an asshole or you will be permanently banned.
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Focus on discussing the idea, not attacking the person.
With 74% of adults in the United States classified as being bigger-bodied individuals by the CDC
I’m sure that’s the CDCs preferred term.
I know everyone likes to be mean, but let’s be creative here: It’s not just the stereotypical fat American. Look at our athletes and body builders, a lot of people who could possibly be in these terms are healthy by all metrics; some Americans are just taller and more muscular.
I’m not downplaying the obesity epidemic, but I feel like a more generic term is appropriate here.
It’s rare for bodybuilders to push over 300lbs in weight, even supplemented. When talking about body mass, sure BMI is just an indicator and not a diagnostic measure.
Of the 74% mentioned in the article, a small percentage of that would be the athletes and other genetic outliers.
Skewed anecdote:
There’s a decent portion of the US military who I’ve seen fail height/weight standards from powerlifting themselves into being too muscley.
If your weight is too high compared to your height (BMI), they flag you. Then they wrap a tape measure around your neck, and your waist, and if your core is too thick comparatively, you get forced to cut weight. I’ve seen soldiers fight back, and successfully convince their command team to waive their “weight problem” by going out of their way to get BodPodded and proving they are as low as 12% body fat.
I don’t know how much of an outlier the military population is statistically compared to the general US population, but by CDC standards these individuals count as “overweight” despite being incredibly in shape. I have zero faith and trust in the CDC’s use of BMI to generalize a population’s health level.
I would guess the military is a large outlier compared to the general population considering all of the physical training soldiers are required to do. People don’t just accidentally gain a bunch of muscle, it takes a lot of hard work.
As stated, BMI is an indicator and not a diagnostic.
I got an e-trike that lists its weight limit as 330lbs. However, the seat post only supports 220. So one bent seat post later, I’m looking for a new post that can support my fat ass and I’m coming up short. Help?
Solid aluminum bar is pretty cheap, if you have any sort of tools to cut it to length. I don’t know what your clamping/attachment method is for your bike.
Was hoping for something premade. I’ve got a Lectric XP Trike.
Yeah, I haven’t seen anything for a more sturdy seat post. Im willing to bet you could find an aftermarket seat and post though, because it looks like it’s a pipe-in-pipe attachment to the rest of the bike. As long as it’s got the same diameter.
Or fill the stock one up with JB weld or something. Give it some extra stiffness.
Stock post is suspension, and given that it’s a trike I’m not sure a suspension fork would do much. In any case, getting a solid piece custom made would likely be my best option. Thanks.
Old thread, but I’m loving this suspension post with my xpress. Rated for 264lbs, but that’s underselling it. It has an extra spring you can add in for heavier riders that really ups the stiffness, but still has great give. The design is way more seriously engineered than Lectrics generic style spring post.
The 31.6/450mm long is what fits my bike with the lectric stock seatpost clamp.
Amazing, thank you.
Idk for sure, but maybe look into recumbent bikes? 3 wheels for more support and usually outfitted with a full seat and not just a bike post.
I just checked, and the company website page on my relatively high end carbon bike has a listed max weight (rider+bike+equipment) of 120kg. Easy enough to find on the page.
That said…were I close to that limit, I think I’d opt for a steel bike, or maybe titanium if I have the money. Carbon is amazing but its failure mechanism isn’t pretty.
When I worked in bike shops–and it’s been a number of years–higher end racing bikes usually did a pretty good job of listing the maximum weight on the bike. That was particularly true when they were bikes that were as close as possible to the minimum weight permissible for racing (which at the time was about 16#; I don’t know that is in kilos off the top of my head). Most people that were dropping >$5000 on a bike in the mid 2000s tended to be cat 1/2 racers already, so it wasn’t an issue, but there were a few guys I knew that were taaaaaaallllll, and they were barely below the weight limits, despite being lean as fuck.
6 feet 6 inches, 270 pounds here. I spent a couple of weeks tracking down weight and height limits when I was looking into bikes. It wasn’t easy, and it should have been. I don’t expect every model of every bike at every manufacturer to cater to me, I just wanted to find one goddamn mountain bike I could safely ride.
I ended up with an eMTB made by Specialized, and paying more than I wanted to, and calling the bike shop to see if they knew the weight limit because the documentation on the website was unreadable without an engineering degree. (I exaggerate, but it was bad.)
But in the meantime, I spent a lot of time having bike brand website “sizing quizzes” do the surprised pikachu face when I entered my height/weight: https://toot.cafe/@isaaclyman/112714856810902224
I’m 6 ft 6 myself and much fatter by the sounds of it, and I feel your pain! My biggest beef is when they say something is “appropriate for anyone over 6’!” And the other size categories are broken down in 2" intervals. Like a bike built for someone a half foot shorter than me is gonna work. I haven’t had a bike that fit since I was a child and shorter.
Another slightly related rant id like to rage is furniture in restaurants. Seriously child sized. I went out last night with friends and couldn’t get my legs under the table. Everyone had a good time but me who’s ass back and knees suffered.
Fuck being tall. If anyone ever gives you the choice be 6ft even.
Yeah, being tall sucks. If anyone out there wants to be 4 inches taller, I’ll be your donor.
Honestly if airplane seats were less like medieval torture devices and T-shirts didn’t shrink in the dryer, I’d be all right. I can deal with bumping my head on things and getting the same questions/comments every time I meet someone new. But being constantly reminded by ordinary objects that I’m not considered part of the bell curve? Rude.
SO rude!
Im just under 6’ and airline seats are torture at any height.
It almost has to be intentional. Two sheets of plywood stuck together at 90° would be more comfortable than whatever it is they’re doing.
On the other hand, my wife is 5’4” and springs out of her seat after a four hour flight like she’s just had a spa day.
how well do Dutch omafiets and Japanese mamachari fare in this regard? so much of what’s available in the US seems aimed at sport (racing or mountain biking) rather than the utility and daily commuting focus of Europe and Japan …
Well only 15% and 4.5% of adults are obese in the Netherlands and Japan, respectively. Nearly 50% in the US are. I don’t see any reason why the few design differences between a classic American hybrid or road bike and either of the types you mention would drastically affect their weight capacity, but it’s also just much less of an issue in those countries.
Generally 120 or 150 kg judging from Sparta and Gazelle materials. That’s about the same as in the article.
Now, our weight distribution is a bit less extreme than in the US, But there are definitely commuters using their bike outside the manufacturer specifications out there right now.
To say nothing of toddler moms.
Those bikes are often steel, and likely could support more weight, but not by much. Wheels and tires have their limits too. I wouldn’t consider anything but a custom bike or higher-end steel touring bike if I weighed more than 250lbs.
mamachari
I picked a random bike on their website and it had the exact same problem the article is about: it doesn’t list a maximum weight for the rider.
I guess this is one situation of privilege I and a lot of lightweight people experience: Of course the bike will support my weight, I don’t even have to check. Meanwhile people over 200 pounds are told to import bikes and 300+ people don’t even get any certainty that an import will support them.
Tell the world about an American problem without mentioning “America”.
Obesity aside, it’s important to have the weight limits clearly defined just for hauling stuff alone, but I applaud anyone who gets on a bike and rides. We should be encouraging overweight people to ride instead of trying to shame them.
America has a serious food problem where shitty food that is horrible for you is far more affordable and accessible for man than actual proper food that will nourish you. As a result, obesity has become a massive problem. Cycling won’t fix everything but it can help a hell of a lot!
136 Kilograms
More than enough, what is this article on about?
Found the European ^
Just kidding, apparently the complaint is that such weight limites are not prominently shown. I’ll be the last to defend any industry but this one does seem a bit of a stretch
Holy shit what a thread. I scrolled down and didn’t expect huge diet+exercise debate.
I was 300 lbs. I’m 240 lbs now.
32mm tires AT MINIMUM at 125 psi, and an alloy frame is the way. My race bike is 28mm and tops out at 265 lbs. Meaning, I’m always at close to maximum capacity – when I was 300 lbs, I was overcapacity on my 32mm bike.
Over 300 lb, you want 34-36-38mm tires with increasing diameter for every 25-50 lbs added.
I agree that there exists a problem with unmarked weight limits and this affects larger riders, but I think the author’s proposed change will not be sufficient to increase the availability of bikes with higher limits. The author writes:
My proposed solution, which I presented recently at the National Bicycle Dealers Association annual meeting, is to add the weight limit to the geometry spec sheet for every bicycle next to the standover height and reach
Publishing a spec is (and ought to be) a minimum obligation by a manufacturer, since the consumer has no way to compute these values on their own. So I agree with that. The problem is that unlike the standover height or wheel diameter, the weight limit is artificially constrained downward by limits of mechanical modeling software or destructive testing, and artificial limits like how much product liability the lawyers are willing to permit.
If bike manufacturers have a robust regime for testing up to 136 kg, then testing beyond that would require new processes and test equipment, all of which cost money. So a manufacturer that complies with the author’s proposed rule would simply publish the 136 kg and call it a day, foregoing a supposedly narrow market segment. So a frame that could have supported more weight has been marked lower than it ought to be, while fully complying with the proposed rule.
We run into the crux of the issue: economic demand for higher weight limit bikes is not perceived as being significant. So few will supply that market. Which means there’s little demonstrable demand. Which keeps the supply small.
If this sounds familiar to this community, it’s essentially the same problem as with micromobility from the regulatory aspect in the USA: only the automobile is viewed as “serious” transportation, so everything else is just for recreation and doesn’t warrant its own infrastructure. So no separated infrastructure is built. Which keeps viable options like cycling and roller-blading from becoming popular. Which reinforces the perception as not being a “serious” mode of transportation. Repeat ad nauseum.
There are no easy answers to such structural issues, but we can take inspiration from the popularity of ebikes in the past decade: growing from a niche of motors crudly strapped to conventional bikes, ebikes nearly single-handedly transformed the perception of bikes overall, showcasing their strengths in sense urban areas like NYC for delivery vehicles: fast, nimble, cheaper than an automobile. From there, they became popular not just for existing cyclists, but new riders, some whom haven’t been in the saddle since childhood. New markets opened up, and combined with a touch of enabling legislation, ebikes have taken off.
I think the author touched upon the niche that could drive higher weight limits, and that would be cargo ebikes. That space is growing as ebikes – a bonafide transportation answer to American sprawling suburbs – become more readily accepted, and more fairly-wealthy suburbanites take up cargo ebikes to move the whole family.
Of course, this is going to be a slow process. And it will take a while for cargo ebike prices to come down from the “luxury” range to an “affordable” figure. But I think that’s the crack that will grow to break the ice.
As for whether the demand should even be met, I saw that a different comment remarked that today’s bikes aren’t built for larger people, since in the past, most people weren’t as large. And that’s factually true, but it doesn’t justify not fulfilling a market in the here-and-now. Nor does it support the idea that nobody in the past was over 100 kg (220 lbs).
A quick web search shows that some NFL players in the 1930s Hall of Fame were over 100 kg. If these folks wanted to ride a bicycle with any amount of cargo, it probably would be as difficult to find a sufficient bike then or now. So the problem has always existed, but the degree to which it’s a problem has changed to include more people. That should be a reason to encourage more bike varieties, not to shut down the very idea that larger bikes ought exist.
As another commenter notes, these people deserve bikes too.
With bicycles one major hurdle is that they are assembled out of a bunch of components sourced from multiple different manufacturers, meant for different uses. So while you can create a bicycle frame that handles 150kg fine, can you find a saddle, seat post, suspension fork, hubs, wheels, tubes, tires, cranks etc that all also support 150kg? Or will one of those parts be cheaply sourced as only promising 100kg, so that’s what the label will say in the end.
Component-level weight ratings are indeed lacking right now, although I will note that the author appears to be proposing a frame-only weight rating, presumably because while all other parts of a bike can be replaced, the frame is at the center of a bike, setting aside Ship of Theseus considerations. Replacing a frame is virtually equivalent to building a new bike, after all.
Of course, a manufacturer of assembled bikes should publish an overall weight limit for the bike as-assembled. But still, it might be nice to know that the frame specifically is overbuilt for that particular assemblage, meaning it has capacity that can be utilized with the appropriate upgrades.
You’re absolutely right that just rating the frame alone won’t necessarily result in broader marker supply, but it’s certainly a start. As I said, there’s a vicious feedback cycle and the way to break it is to find a niche and grow it. Perhaps mandating a frame-only weight rating will spur lawyers to require all weight-bearing components to also have weight ratings as legal cover, or something like that. Such a limit might be low, though, but is still progress.
I’m still pretty new to riding bikes as a adult, but wanted to share my experience in hopes it helps folks:
Im 6’ 330 lbs and ended up getting an aventon aventure eMTB. It’s held up well over the 400 miles I put on it, but I definitely notice the brakes going quicker than advertised with all the hills near me and my size. I’m sure it won’t last forever, but I’m expecting to get under $1 of initial cost per mile ridden, which felt worth it to me as a 2nd car alternative.
I’ve been looking into a company called Clydesdale also to plan for bike 2.0 in a few years. They advertise titanium framed bikes made for very tall folks. I never used them myself, but they may be a good option for folks willing to pay 5k for a bike.
